But none of these treatments fix damaged tissue to heal the heart itself, says Biomedical Engineer David Stout of Brown University. The inadequacy of current treatments is reflected in some daunting statistics: scarred and damaged heart muscle results in heart failure for millions of heart attack survivors worldwide each year, and over half of heart attack survivors will have another heart attack within five years.

A new treatment option may be on the way, however. Stout and his graduate advisor, Biomedical Engineer Thomas J. Webster, have created a new material that could one day patch–and help restore–healthy heart tissue.

As a reminder to how vital anitbiotics effectiveness to all of this, at all levels of society, I offer this take in the era before them. President Coolidge lost his son to a simple injury, plunging him into a grief that impacted his effectivness:

On June 30, Coolidge’s two sons, eighteen-year-old John and sixteen-year-old Calvin Jr., played tennis on the south grounds of the White House. Young Calvin had worn sneakers but no socks. A blister developed on one of his toes but he ignored it. When he fell ill on July 2, White House physician Joel Boone discovered red streaks running up the boy’s leg. Laboratory tests soon showed that Calvin Jr. was suffering from pathogenic blood poisoning. In less than a week, the boy was dead.

THAT, my friends, is what we return to if our current crop of antibioics fail AND we drain pharma companies of their incentive and abilities to develop new ones.